Community Cats

What is a “community cat”?

We receive many calls about cats that wander local neighborhoods, but do not appear to have a home. Callers are concerned for the cats’ well-being, but are unable to trap them to give them proper care. The callers usually mention that the cat is missing the tip of one ear. Ear-tipping, as it’s known, is a universal method used to easily identify spayed or neutered and vaccinated community cats.

Montgomery County Community Cat Coalition (MC C3) is an independent, 501(c)(3) non-profit animal protection organization dedicated to improving the lives of community cats in Montgomery County. Community cats live outside without an owner. Some are the offspring of lost or abandoned pet cats, but most community cats are feral (meaning they’re not socialized to humans) because they weren’t exposed to people during their first few months of life. While community cats don’t have a traditional owner, they often are fed by caring people, and can live happy, healthy lives on their own, especially with Trap-Neuter-Return (TNR) intervention.

MC C3 assists Montgomery County residents with TNR through a grant from the Maryland Department of Agriculture to fund free spay/neuter and rabies vaccinations for community cats in zip codes 20902, 20904, and 20906. Please contact trapping@mcc3.org for more information.

Cat food and shelters are available to community cat caregivers on a limited basis. For more information, please contact foodbank@mcc3.org. Further information about MC C3 activities can be found on their website (https://mcc3.org). You can also follow them on Facebook (@mccommunitycats) and Twitter (@mccommunitycat).